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AT&D #23. Advertising and Public Relations

What is your view of Advertising and PR and what makes you have that view?

My view of Advertising and PR is somewhat mixed; in essence, advertising is a form of media that deliberately tries to win over an audience by utilizing certain methods and strategies (in some cases, the more aggressive campaigns tend to repeat and show little of an ad’s central focus on a product to create or build up hype) and PR is a form of communication that strives to make and maintain trust by a relationship (i.e. a company to a news outlet or publication).

When combined together, Advertising and PR seem to balance the negative tropes and aspects of commercialization with the positive aspects of communication through the good management of someone or something so that the public can both be aware of and be more on the side of accepting the spread of certain information, and how this information can relate to or be helpful for them.

With that said however, advertising is still manipulation so that’s where I have my negative opinions on it but the PR aspect is good in the sense that at least if the information or news is supporting certain harmless campaigns (a product / a service / as an entertainment promo) more people are willing to put their faith into whatever is being shown to them, as long as the medium the information is being shown under is used in good faith and proves effective in capturing peoples’ attention through relatability.

A particular example I can give in regards to Advertising and PR closely ties into my major, graphic design. Since advertising is an application of graphic design, in this sense it is not like its broadcast counterpart since the goal here is to convey appeal through imagery and brand familiarity from a company logo, as in some cases with long-running ads.

The PR aspect in this case may come from the relationship between the ad agency and a publication company (ready to distribute the visual ads on newspapers or even plaster them on billboards and busses) as the latter can help orally spread the word on an agency’s campaign for readers, aside from showing the visual material. In this scenario, I see the usefulness for Advertising and PR in tandem and in my opinion, it can be more effective than doing it televised (although certain campaigns will vary and may need to rely on that medium).